Educating Caribbean Librarians to Provide Library Education in a Dynamic Information Environment

The dynamism of the information sector driven by ICT and the resulting impact on library and information science professionals have resulted in significant changes in how teaching librarians in the Caribbean are educated. This research was conducted to: describe the education of teaching librarians; examine the changes in education; and investigate how teaching librarians develop and hone their teaching competencies. A mixed-method approach was used to garner quantitative data from 45 librarians and qualitative data from relevant documents in two library schools. The findings show there were significant changes as new courses and programs were developed, online programs were implemented and faculty qualifications upgraded. These changes were somewhat effective, however, teacher-librarians, who developed teaching skills mainly from teacher training, expressed a need for additional technology skills to make them more effective. It was recommended that LIS schools need to diversify their programs to make the content and the activities more aligned to the day to day practices of these teacher librarians.